Israel - Hamas war XIII

[Tywin et al.]

59 minutes ago, Zorral said:

My friend, your denial is so deep it has blinded your eyes to what it there.

I literally said something completely factual. A person who was the mayor of a tiny town two decades ago said something insane. Where's the error? 

 

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

Silly me, I forgot that Gaza is the so called only true democracy in the middle east that currently has Israel under an apartheid regime and actually has the power to carry out the ethnic cleansing campaign in question.

You whine about double standards without understanding that the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli state are not in any way comparable. One is a terrorist/liberatory organization where as the other is the most powerful state in the middle east and has the express and unyielding backing of the global hegemon. To try to hold them to the same standard is disingenuous and only serves to deflect criticism and obfuscate the material conditions that creates these terrorist groups.

No, you just believe a 5'2 guy can punch a 6'8 guy, say he wants to kill him and everyone in his family, then expect no reaction. Live in the real world dude. 

ETA: And every time you call Hamas liberators, you make yourself look dumb as hell. You cannot liberate anything if your goal is also to destroy that which you want to liberate. 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[Tywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Conflicting Thought said:

and put him in the wrong side of history, i hope for his sake that years in the future he will be ashamed of himself, and i hope that because the more likely outcome is that he will never come to realize what he was defending

What have I defended? When have I supported most of what Israel has done? Pointing out that it's fucked up to give Hamas a total pass is not the same as supporting Israel. FFS. 

[Conflicting Thought]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Live in the real world dude. 

you have become blinded and oh so sure of yourself, telling people all the time to live in the real world, and other such things, but you dont see how blind you are wich is ironic but also so sad.  i guess that is the burden of the liberal, sooner or later you WILL be in the wrong side of history

[Conflicting Thought]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

What have I defended? When have I supported most of what Israel has done? Pointing out that it's fucked up to give Hamas a total pass is not the same as supporting Israel. FFS. 

you have done much more than that, and if you dont see that you are either lying to us or to yourself

[Tywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Conflicting Thought said:

you have become blinded and oh so sure of yourself, telling people all the time to live in the real world, and other such things, but you dont see how blind you are wich is ironic but also so sad.  i guess that is the burden of the liberal, sooner or later you WILL be in the wrong side of history

What wrong side? Saying it's wrong to cut off water, food and medical aid? Saying it's wrong to bomb targets you're not like 95% sure are valid? Saying it's wrong for there not to be a Palestinian state? 

[Mudguard]

6 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Maybe not, but the Prime Minister, President, Finance Minister, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Defence, a Minister in the Emergency Cabinet and multiple Knesset members all making crazy statements should be ringing alarm bells, no?

*crickets*

Very predictable that this comment gets ignored while multiple posts are made dismissing the comments of the former small town mayor.

It's very clear by now that the idea of clearing Gaza of Palestinians and resettling the area with Israeli's is a belief held by many high level people in ruling coalition, as well as by many people in the general population.  It would be interesting for polling to track this issue over time.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the military campaign so far has more or less followed the leaked resettlement plan.  They've pushed the majority of the population all the way to Rafah, and the numbers continue to increase every day.  They've also destroyed an enormous percentage of residential housing so that many of the forcibly displaced Palestinians have no home to return to.  In addition, they are depriving displaced Palestinians of basic necessities, such as food, water, shelter, medicine, and medical treatment.  They are allowing just enough aid in for people to barely survive, at least for now.  The conditions in which hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians are currently living in is atrocious, and this has been done intentionally.

All this makes resettlement in another country more attractive.  In Egypt, for example, there would be no blocks from Israel on the amount of food, water, fuel, etc. that they could receive.  If the war goes on for another 6 or more months, how long can the people hold on?  I have no doubt that the option to resettle Palestinians is under consideration by the government, and if they can get buy in from Egypt or another country, which I think is by far the hardest part, they will do it.

[GrimTuesday]

28 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I literally said something completely factual. A person who was the mayor of a tiny town two decades ago said something insane. Where's the error? 

 

No, you just believe a 5'2 guy can punch a 6'8 guy, say he wants to kill him and everyone in his family, then expect no reaction. Live in the real world dude. 

ETA: And every time you call Hamas liberators, you make yourself look dumb as hell. You cannot liberate anything if your goal is also to destroy that which you want to liberate. 

This idea that Hamas is a 5'2 guy punching a 6'8 guy is just idiotic. You're trying to conjurer a power dynamic where a terrorist group is equal to a nuclear power with basically a blank check from the global hegemon. It's more accurate to compare Hamas to a house cat and Israel to a person. The cat can raise hell, make a racket and can even cause some (relatively) small amount of damage, but no matter how much a homicidal maniac it may be (and all cats are), the damage it can actually cause, no matter how painful in the moment, is ultimately not life threatening.

Now, don't get me wrong, Hamas isn't some kind of sweet little kitty that sits in your lap, it's a mean ally cat that hisses and scratches anyone who comes close, but ultimately it's not actually dangerous to an adult human.

You're understanding of Hamas and liberation movements in general is puddle deep.

24 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

you have become blinded and oh so sure of yourself, telling people all the time to live in the real world, and other such things, but you dont see how blind you are wich is ironic but also so sad.  i guess that is the burden of the liberal, sooner or later you WILL be in the wrong side of history

In the words of Phil Ochs

"In every American community, you have varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."

Edited December 22, 2023 by GrimTuesday

[GrimTuesday]

Well I for one am shocked that the IDF was full of shit the whole time and when it didn't pan out, they just moved onto the next lie.

Quote

Following the siege on al-Shifa, the Israeli government attempted to convince the world that the hospital held both the literal and figurative smoking guns which would prove its alleged connections to Hamas military operations. To justify such a brutal attack, one would expect there to have been clear, irrefutable evidence of Hamas’ presence and use of the complex, but aside from a handful of weapons and some paraphernalia, the findings have been lackluster. An analysis by The Washington Post of open-source materials and evidence provided by Israel in the aftermath of the attack found very little proof that the tunnels under al-Shifa led to a major Hamas command center.

 

[Kalbear]

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What wrong side? Saying it's wrong to cut off water, food and medical aid?

Which you said was what any country would do in Israel's circumstance.

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Saying it's wrong to bomb targets you're not like 95% sure are valid?

Which you've said any other country would also do.

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Saying it's wrong for there not to be a Palestinian state? 

By forcibly moving all Palestinians out of Gaza, just like that far right ex-mayor wants to do to them.

One thing I'd also like to caution you is that you seem to have this weird idea that if you criticize Israel you are not also capable of criticizing hamas. Or that you have to take a side in this, and the only two viable sides are Israel or hamas. This isn't a sports contest. Hamas is absolutely horrible. Israel is showing more and more how horrible they are acting too. 

And again I ask - if you are okay with hamas being treated equivalently to Israel in rhetoric, are you also okay with treating Israel economically and politically like hamas? Because otherwise it is absolutely reasonable to criticize Israel disproportionately (at least as us citizens) because of the two, Israel is the one that is using us bombs and drones and tech to kill Palestinians. 

[House Balstroko]

18 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

This idea that Hamas is a 5'2 guy punching a 6'8 guy is just idiotic. You're trying to conjurer a power dynamic where a terrorist group is equal to a nuclear power with basically a blank check from the global hegemon. It's more accurate to compare Hamas to a house cat and Israel to a person. The cat can raise hell, make a racket and can even cause some (relatively) small amount of damage, but no matter how much a homicidal maniac it may be (and all cats are), the damage it can actually cause, no matter how painful in the moment, is ultimately not life threatening.

Now, don't get me wrong, Hamas isn't some kind of sweet little kitty that sits in your lap, it's a mean ally cat that hisses and scratches anyone who comes close, but ultimately it's not actually dangerous to an adult human.

Your understanding of Hamas and liberation movements in general is puddle deep.

What has Hamas actually done to further the Palestinian cause? If they truly cared about Palestinians, they would have used their resources to develop the Gaza Strip. Instead, their leadership is loaded with money, while the majority of Palestinians are struggling daily. 
 

As @Tywin et al. pointed out, their only goal is to destroy Israel. They don’t care about Palestinians at all. 
 

The Palestinian cause is just, as long as recognition of Israel is also guaranteed. Hamas and the like are garbage organisations. 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, House Balstroko said:

What has Hamas actually done to further the Palestinian cause? If they truly cared about Palestinians, they would have used their resources to develop the Gaza Strip. Instead, their leadership is loaded with money, while the majority of Palestinians are struggling daily. 

One thing this has done is actually get the US to do something against the illegal settlements in the west Bank. That's more than the PA had done in 20 years.

And as I mentioned before Gaza in the last 15 years has been better than it was previously. More order, police, emergency services. 

But it is also the case that they don't want to stop fighting Israel. And, as it turns out, that's true of a lot of Palestinians too.

 

[kissdbyfire]

I'm reposting this b/c I think Chris Hayes makes a very important point that shouldn't be ignored. It is, in part, why Israel must be held to a much higher standard than a fucking terrorist organisation. Isn't it obvious? Israel is conducting this war applying the "moral logic of Hamas", as Hayes said. 

And not to beat this very dead horse too much, of course it matters what the former mayor of a tiny town said, because she's not a lone lunatic running around screaming that the moon is made of blue cheese. She's saying what numerous government officials have said repeatedly, from the Prime Minister down to unimportant former mayors.

 

"I will be the first to confess, the first to confess, I have no idea what to do about Hamas or about what comes next. But the ‘Amalek method’ cannot be the solution. To be honest, I’m not particularly convinced the Israeli leadership has any idea what comes next.
[…]
But whatever your views on the Israeli - Palestinian conflict, it is just plainly the case that our country is supporting a war whose animating moral logic looks to most of the world, and frankly to me, to be that every single last person in Gaza is guilty and deserves their lot. And that is the moral logic of Hamas. It is the moral logic that drove the atrocity of October 7. And an atrocity like October 7 does not, cannot, justify whatever comes after it, whatever the response. There is no terrorist attack, no matter how horrific - and truly October 7 was horrific - that can wash clean what we are seeing in Gaza and what we as Americans and our government are abetting. It must end. We must stop it."

 

 

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

This idea that Hamas is a 5'2 guy punching a 6'8 guy is just idiotic. You're trying to conjurer a power dynamic where a terrorist group is equal to a nuclear power with basically a blank check from the global hegemon.

I'm literately doing the opposite by comparing a very weak individual to The Mountain, I'm not giving the latter a blank check, but you can't be surprised if you get hit back if you're the little guy.

Quote

You're understanding of Hamas and liberation movements in general is puddle deep.

Only if you don't care about liberation. 
 

48 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Which you said was what any country would do in Israel's circumstance.

Did I say that outside of doing it for a day or two to spook their leadership? The only real contention should be the fuel because everyone knows Hamas wanted it for themselves. 

So tell me, what army would give the opposing side what they wanted most to use to attack them? If they were angels and used it all for aid you'd have a point, but no rational person believes this because they have plenty already.

Quote

Which you've said any other country would also do.

No, I've said any other country would retaliate if they had the means to do so. 
 

Quote

By forcibly moving all Palestinians out of Gaza, just like that far right ex-mayor wants to do to them.

Shouldn't the settlers in the WB also be forcibly removed? Have I not been consistent here? 

 

Quote

One thing I'd also like to caution you is that you seem to have this weird idea that if you criticize Israel you are not also capable of criticizing hamas. 

Nope, just that saying Hamas is bad and then writing an essay about why Israel is bad is incredibly unbalanced, especially when Hamas started this recent war. Again, pretty much everyone who has died would be alive if they didn't start the war. Not giving that proper weight is weird.
 

Quote

And again I ask - if you are okay with hamas being treated equivalently to Israel in rhetoric, are you also okay with treating Israel economically and politically like hamas? Because otherwise it is absolutely reasonable to criticize Israel disproportionately (at least as us citizens) because of the two, Israel is the one that is using us bombs and drones and tech to kill Palestinians. 

What part of a 5'2 guy starting a fight with a 6'8 guy is equal? When have I ever said Israel should get a blank check? It's always been my argument that many of you give Hamas a free pass. Saying they're bad once in a while is not a real criticism of them. 

 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Trying for a little levity here, there's a whole segment in Against the Day that muses about fighting someone of a different height:

 

..."they claim to be under attack by a horde of hostile gnomes, and have set out red signal lamps, set out in concentric circles."

"There they are!" called Chick Counterfly, pointing over the starboard quarter.  

"Then there is nothing to discuss, " declared Randolph St. Cosmo.  "We must put down and render aid."

They descended over a battlefield swarming with diminutive combatants wearing pointed hats and carrying what proved to be electric crossbows, from which they periodically discharged bolts of intense greenish light, intermittently revealing the scene with a morbidity like that of a guttering star.

"We cannot attack these fellows," protested Lindsay, "for they are shorter than we, and the Rules of Engagement directly state--"

"In an emergency, that choice lies at the Commanders discretion" replied Randolph.

They were soaring now close above the metallic turrets and parapets of a sort of castle, where burned the crimson lights of distress.  Figures could be discerned below gazing up at Inconvenience .  Peering at them through a night-glass, Miles stood at the conning station, transfixed by the sight of a woman upon a high balcony.  "My word, she's lovely!" he exclaimed at last.

Their fateful decision to land would immediately embroil them in the byzantine politics of the region, and eventually they would find themselves creeping perilously close to outright violation of the Directives relating to Noninterference and Height Discrepancy, which might easily have brought an official hearing, and perhaps even disfellowshipment from the National Organization.  For a detailed account of their subsequent narrow escapes from the increasingly deranged attentions of the Legion of Gnomes, ..... readers are referred to The Chums of Chance in the Bowels of the Earth

[GrimTuesday]

26 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm literately doing the opposite by comparing a very weak individual to The Mountain, I'm not giving the latter a blank check, but you can't be surprised if you get hit back if you're the little guy.

These two sides aren't even the same species (metaphorically, of course). It's not two guys of different height, it's one side that is able to commit acts of brutality with impunity against the second side where as the other side can at most cause minor, relatively insignificant damage (This is not to say that Hamas' actions aren't horrific or are acceptable, simply that they don't actually imperil Israel's existence as a state). A 5'2 human is able to kill a 6'8 person, it may be harder than just punching them, but give them a knife or a gun, or even just a significant amount of training in hand to hand combat and they absolutely could kill the larger person. Short of getting their hands on a nuke, there is nothing that Hamas could do to actually destroy the state of Israel.

The only way the state of Israel could be "destroyed" is if the current incarnation were to be scrapped an a single state where equal rights were afforded to both sides (which would have to involve a guarantee of the safety of Jews from persecution), and that will never be achieved through violence.  At this point, the aim is to end the occupation, and the only route that Palestinians have been given is to make the occupation so costly in dollars and in lives that it becomes impossible to maintain, because Israel will never end the occupation, they will just continue the grinding ethnic cleansing they have been doing since 1948.

[Zorral]

I removed what I wrote because tonight ... reasons.

~~~~~~~~

Gosh, no Christian churches in Gaza. Anyway, why are these people not ashamed.  O yes! That's right, the Israeli government power lies like the congress itself usually lies -- see Biden's impeachment!

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR Congressional staff tried to protect Gazan churches by sending locations to Israel
The Israeli military received and confirmed the coordinates of the church and covenant in Gaza, both of which aid groups say were later struck by rockets and snipers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/21/congress-gazan-churches-location-israel-00132915
 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Zorral

[polishgenius]

Would people stop calling Hamas liberators. It's fucking embarrassing. I'm not in agreement with all of Tywin's positions here, but trying to combat any of it by using that framing is some shallow bullshit. 'It's just a descriptive word it doesn't mean they're good people' doesn't really work as a defense either because that might be true if you use a pure dictionary definition but it's definitely an emotionally loaded - positive- word in this kind of context. 

 

It makes any criticism of Israel made in conjunction with it sound less credible -which is dangerous coz Israel needs to be under pressure from credible public criticism to persuade the governments backing it to do something about their actions - and it makes it much easier for anti-semites to convince people who would recoil from such a thing if they knew they were doing it to stand next to them. I've already seen seemingly perfectly sensible people - the kind of leftists who a few months ago were fully aware of the need to clarify who, or what viewpoint, you were associating with because of the danger of boosting antisemitism- parotting the 'well Hamas can't help being how they are it's natural in response' and that is exactly what they want people to think.  

[House Balstroko]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

One thing this has done is actually get the US to do something against the illegal settlements in the west Bank. That's more than the PA had done in 20 years.

And as I mentioned before Gaza in the last 15 years has been better than it was previously. More order, police, emergency services. 

But it is also the case that they don't want to stop fighting Israel. And, as it turns out, that's true of a lot of Palestinians too.

 

That’s definitely a positive, though I’m not sure I’d credit it to anything Hamas has done, but rather the increasing brutality of the settlers. 

[Conflicting Thought]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Would people stop calling Hamas liberators. It's fucking embarrassing. I'm not in agreement with all of Tywin's positions here, but trying to combat any of it by using that framing is some shallow bullshit. 'It's just a descriptive word it doesn't mean they're good people' doesn't really work as a defense either because that might be true if you use a pure dictionary definition but it's definitely an emotionally loaded - positive- word in this kind of context. 

 

It makes any criticism of Israel made in conjunction with it sound less credible -which is dangerous coz Israel needs to be under pressure from credible public criticism to persuade the governments backing it to do something about their actions - and it makes it much easier for anti-semites to convince people who would recoil from such a thing if they knew they were doing it to stand next to them. I've already seen seemingly perfectly sensible people - the kind of leftists who a few months ago were fully aware of the need to clarify who, or what viewpoint, you were associating with because of the danger of boosting antisemitism- parotting the 'well Hamas can't help being how they are it's natural in response' and that is exactly what they want people to think.  

and what about what kal said?

[GrimTuesday]

11 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Would people stop calling Hamas liberators. It's fucking embarrassing. I'm not in agreement with all of Tywin's positions here, but trying to combat any of it by using that framing is some shallow bullshit. 'It's just a descriptive word it doesn't mean they're good people' doesn't really work as a defense either because that might be true if you use a pure dictionary definition but it's definitely an emotionally loaded - positive- word in this kind of context. 

 

It makes any criticism of Israel made in conjunction with it sound less credible -which is dangerous coz Israel needs to be under pressure from credible public criticism to persuade the governments backing it to do something about their actions - and it makes it much easier for anti-semites to convince people who would recoil from such a thing if they knew they were doing it to stand next to them. I've already seen seemingly perfectly sensible people - the kind of leftists who a few months ago were fully aware of the need to clarify who, or what viewpoint, you were associating with because of the danger of boosting antisemitism- parotting the 'well Hamas can't help being how they are it's natural in response' and that is exactly what they want people to think.  

No, I'm not doing that. This idea that liberation can only be undertaken by perfect victims, needs to be dispelled. It's like focusing on Mandela and painting him as simply a peaceful activist while ignoring the fact that he refused to disavow the violence that the ANC did in pursuit ending apartheid. Now, the level of violence the ANC engaged in wasn't on the level of Hamas, but they did some awful shit, go look up necklacing if you don't know what that is. Violence is part of the liberatory struggle, sometimes it is ugly, more often than not in fact, but once it has passed, those crimes are whitewashed, either consigned to the dust bin of history and memory holed, or are portrayed as a tragic necessity. I personally think that being more clear eyed and honest about is an important part of breaking the notion that the only legitimate method of resistance in the face of a violent occupation is some kind of nonviolent Ghandi style, which even in the case of Indian independence does not fully capture how history happened.

At this time, Israel has created a situation where Hamas is the representative of the Palestinian struggle, and pretending that, as an organization, they aren't liberatory in nature and are simply one dimensional terrorists is used to invalidate the entire movement. I'd rather we focus on groups like the PFLP or one of the left wing liberation groups, or someone like Marwan Barghouti but with Fatah being basically discredited in the eyes of many Palestinians due to their servile collaboration with the Israeli occupation and corruption, Hamas is what they have and we can put Hamas in the proper context while still acknowledging their crimes.